


As if the great divide could swallow me whole

by lover_44



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_44/pseuds/lover_44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could feel Thorin Oakenshield crawling underneath his skin, already making him ache and shift and cringe all over, looking for a place to settle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As if the great divide could swallow me whole

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'd, so I'm sorry for any mistakes. Title belongs to City and Colour's 'Sleeping Sickness', that together with 'Spanish Sahara' from Foals kept playing in loop on my shuffle while I was writing this. Needless to say, this ship has been consuming my life lately.

Richard has been plagued by nightmares his whole life. Everytime he would read a book, watch a movie, see a play, there was always this one character that would get stuck inside his head. The one character that would lodge itself inside his brain, consume his thoughts and  feelings like a plague. Later in life, Richard realised it was a plague, some kind of forsaken curse that dictated his whole being, and at some point it hits Richard that he became an actor not because he wanted to, but because it seemed the natural thing to do when he was already so tormented by characters that weren't even his. Characters that weren’t even characters anymore, not so much as ghosts that followed him everywhere. _Anna Karenina,  Brothers Karamazov, Richard III_. All still there inside his head, eating his brain and changing him.

He could feel it, the moment he stepped in New Zealand and had the first table reading. He could feel Thorin Oakenshield crawling underneath his skin, already making him ache and shift and _cringe_ all over, looking for a place to settle. The job was already half done for him, The Hobbit being Richard’s favorite book since childhood and having caused endless sleepless nights, thinking about the what could have beens. It was a quick change. In a moment he was Richard, shy and quiet Richard, and the next he was Thorin Oakenshield, carrying such a great, blinding rage and stubbornness that it was overwhelming. It wasn’t painless, though. No abrupt change ever is. Richard -Thorin- could feel it as he pushed himself harder and harder, retreating to the point he only spoke when filming or rehearsing. The nightmares where the worse of it all. He would dream of fire and blood and _death_. And every single night he would wake up shivering and sweating and he would press the heels of his hands to his tightly closed eyes until the sounds and perfectly clear scenes would go away. Everytime Richard would fall back to sleep with the desire to claw his eyes out and the putrid, clear smell of smoke.

Lee came along on one summer, bright day. Later Richard would think it was perfectly fitting for Lee. The light New Zealand breeze pushing Lee’s hair _back and forth, back and forth_ , and Richard felt like crying, felt like bunking himself inside his trailer and writing page after page of Thorin Oakenshield’s fucking _mind_ set. And he did, he wrote until he felt his fingertips completely numb and the bitter feeling of _betrayal_ was already settled deep inside him. But Lee, sunny, bright Lee, who always had a smile and it seemed to always appear in a flurry of white and gold had become Richard’s Northern Wind. Had become the anchor between Richard and Thorin, because Lee was beautiful, warm and _real_. He would touch Richard’s wrists, fingertips pressed right against his pulsing point, like if saying _‘you’re here, you’re alive’_. And it would always feel like Richard was being violently ripped out of his own body, floating around like nothing more than a lost spectrum that gave too much of himself and in the end,  became no one. He would always fall back inside his body, though, because Lee would smile and laugh when he saw the light blush colouring Richard’s cheek above his beard and if that wasn’t the most beautiful sound Richard has ever heard, he could not be bothered to figure it out how wrong his sense of beauty was.

 

“Richard” Lee would whisper quietly, hands moving on Richard’s shoulders, discarding clothes and feelings and _everything_ , leaving Richard completely naked and vulnerable.

Richard’s hands would close into fists though, because a big, irrational  and haunted part of his mind would supply him that it was not the time, it was not the place, and least of all, this was not the person, this was an Elven King, a _betrayer_. And Richard would trash and kick and sob, teeths tightly clenched as he fought with his own sickness as Lee settled deep inside of him in more ways than one. He could see it, all of his ghosts surrounding them, making fun of Richard and trying to take a part of him, swallow him whole and make him become absolutely _nothing_. But Lee, Lee was there, Lee was real and he was looking at Richard like he was the only thing in the world that really mattered.

 

“Richard” another quiet whisper

 

“Richard” a kiss

 

_“Richard”_

By the end, Richard was aware that Lee was calling for _him_. That the only reason Lee kept saying his name over and over was because he understood, was because he knew who Richard was and saying his name was almost like bringing him back from a berserker state of rage, and to Richard it felt just like a blinding, red wrath until that point. It was soul crushing and exhausting, but Lee was there, head resting on Richard’s shoulder and breathing loud and broken, and if Lee noticed how Richard would cling to him on the side of too tight even in their boneless sated state, he never said anything. And if for the first time in his life Richard could feel some of the dark haze and deep sickness leave his mind and bones, he didn’t need to say anything, because Lee understood.

 

  


 

 

 

 


End file.
